Business: Marketing

Aaron Smith was looking forward to joining a dozen or so members of the mainstream media at a scheduled gathering of University of Kentucky men's basketball players, each of whom would be available for eight-minute one-on-one interviews.

For the first time in four years, we’re getting ourselves prepared for growth. In our little corner of the world, we’re not sure that things have gotten better, but they seem to have stopped getting worse — and we want to take advantage of opportunities that should present themselves soon. However, we’re not forgetting the hard lessons learned over the past few years.

According to market research, three in four adults over 55 feel dissatisfied with marketing aimed at them, and 71 percent say that advertising images largely do not reflect their lives. Results from a survey conducted for TV Land, a U.S. cable television channel, back this up. Nearly two-thirds of Boomers responding to the survey said they are growing increasingly dissatisfied with media that ignores them and they are tuning out. In the UK, a survey found that 55 percent of adults over 50 feel that businesses have little interest in older people's consumer needs; 46 percent often don't feel that advertising and marketing are aimed at them; and 50 percent find advertising and marketing that are obviously targeting older people as patronizing or stereotypical. Further, a report by Help the Aged (now part of the charity Age UK) notes that 75 percent of respondents to a survey of people ages 60 and older thought that the media ignored the views of their age group.

Our local community association recently began running advertisements for its fitness facilities. In big letters, the ads read: "Because you don't hear them singing about a gigantic yellow polka-dot bikini."

The news that David Barton Gym has filed for bankruptcy protection was another kick in the teeth for our industry. It also should serve as a reminder to every health club owner that the next new thing is not necessarily the right thing.

After the 2010 Winter Olympics, my husband found he had contracted curling fever. I mean, he had it bad. But we never looked into playing, figuring that opportunities to try curling were thin where we live. Then one day, an ad appeared in the local paper. The Potomac Curling Club (I didn't even know there was one) was holding an open house, and everyone was invited. "No experience necessary," the ad noted, but "dress warmly."